The Scent of Fate

Silas

The forest shifted.

Silas felt it before he scented it — a pull, deep and primal, like the ground itself had shuddered awake beneath his boots. The pines stood still, but the wind twisted sharply, bringing with it a new scent that nearly dropped him to his knees.

Wild honey. Moon-touched skin. A heartbeat wrapped in thunder.

He froze in place.

His wolf surged against his bones, claws raking beneath his skin.

Mate.

The word wasn’t soft. It was a command.

Silas staggered forward, breath catching, eyes burning gold. He hadn’t expected it — couldn’t have expected it. For someone like him to be granted a mate… It wasn’t just rare. It was unheard of. A cursebreaker, touched by bloodline magic, cast out from every pack that still remembered what his family had done?

No. The Moon Goddess didn’t grant favors to ghosts.

And yet—

The scent was real. Raw. Recent.

He crouched low, fingers brushing the moss, and inhaled again. It came from the east, cutting through the trees like fire. And beneath the scent, threaded just barely beneath it, he felt something else.

Pain.

Not physical — but emotional. Shattering. Like the other half of the bond had been torn, rejected. A cruel fracture that left the soul raw and exposed.

Someone had rejected her.

Fools.

Silas rose and moved.

He didn’t shift — not yet — but he let his senses bleed closer to the surface. His wolf strained to take over, desperate to find her, to comfort her, to claim her. He hadn’t felt anything this sharp since—

No. He wouldn’t think about that.

He ran, boots silent over the pine needles, until the trees opened into the old hollow, the place where the pack’s energy faded and the land turned wild.

And then he saw her.

She stood at the edge of the stream, barefoot, pale in the moonlight, hair falling like a curtain around her. Her shoulders were trembling, but she didn’t cry. She was too proud for that — he could tell. Even from here.

Silas stepped back, heart slamming in his chest.

She’s mine.

The truth of it hit him like a thunderclap.

But that truth came with danger. If she was his mate… then the curse wasn’t done with him. Not yet.

His family had been the first to carry it — a bond broken not by rejection, but by betrayal. An old pact with blood magic that turned love into ruin. The Blackmoors had once ruled with silver tongues and iron claws. Until they tried to control fate itself. Until the curse turned on them.

Silas had spent his life running from it.

Now, the Goddess had given him a second chance.

Or a death sentence.

She turned her head slightly, as if sensing him. Not fully — but enough for him to see the line of her jaw, the way she held herself like a blade ready to snap.

She’s beautiful, his wolf whispered.

But fragile, too. Wounded.

He took one step forward — and the curse stirred.

The air rippled. The wind stopped. And the sigil hidden beneath his shirt, burned into his skin from birth, flared hot.

Silas hissed and dropped to one knee, pressing a fist to the dirt as pain lanced through his chest. The trees groaned around him. The bond was trying to form — too fast. Too soon. It was recognizing her through the broken link left by the rejection.

“She’s not ready,” he rasped, teeth gritted.

But the curse didn’t care.

The ground split beneath his hand, just for a moment, and black vines coiled up from the earth — dead, brittle things that vanished as quickly as they came.

A warning.

If he claimed her now, without breaking the curse, she would die. Or worse — be bound to him in madness.

Silas forced himself to retreat, one step at a time, until the scent faded and the fire in his blood cooled to a simmer.

Not yet.

But soon.

He would find her again — not as a shadow in the trees, but face to face.

And when he did… he would fight fate itself if he had to.

Because no one else was going to break her.

Not the curse.

Not the pack.

Not the boy who had thrown her away.